Six To Go
Are Liverpool going to qualify for the Champions League?
Liverpool have six Premier League games left. Maybe Arne Slot does too. The outcome of these matches will have an enormous bearing on next season. There can be no cruise to the finish line as there was in 2024/25.
Intrigue is added by the Reds facing the three teams with whom they are contesting the Champions League qualification places. The bookmakers have Liverpool as favourites to finish fifth, with Opta Analyst in agreement.
Their prediction is for the Reds to earn another nine(.19) of the 18 available points. With three of the remaining games at Anfield, you’d hope they can improve on that total. But aside from their clash with Crystal Palace, every other fixture is with a team currently housed between third and eighth in the table.
None of those clubs is more than five points adrift of Liverpool, with the Reds three points off third (ahead of Manchester United playing their game in hand against Leeds on Monday). Everything is on the table.
As daunting as that sounds for Slot’s stuttering side, several of these teams are in false positions if you trust xG data. The expected points method I have used for years has Liverpool third; Understat agrees, Opta has the Reds fourth. Either way, their foundation is far more solid than whatever is propping up Aston Villa.
There will be Liverpool supporters who will think there must be an error here. The Reds frequently look clueless, spineless, fragile. This data doesn’t automatically mean that they’ve played well. It simply highlights a pertinent fact: they’ve often had opportunities to improve the result in many matches in which they dropped points.
The issue has often been how bad Liverpool have been in the moments that matter. Inside the boxes, rather than in-between them. As covered last week (below), it’s easy to understand why the squad’s confidence and belief are utterly shot after a punishing campaign. This has occasionally undermined reasonable performances.
Liverpool’s open play xG difference is within one of what Arsenal have posted (even if this comparison is weakened by Mikel Arteta’s lack of interest in allowing a football match to break out). This may be part of why the club have backed Slot when corners of the Reds’ fanbase would have driven him back to Rotterdam months ago.
As positive as this appears, Liverpool’s run-in is tough. If you analyse remaining fixtures via opposition points-per-game averages, only Brentford and Palace have tougher sets than the Reds.
We can predict how matches will pan out using the xG numbers. No need for a supercomputer here, just Excel. Here are the games Liverpool have left to play.
You won’t find many Kopites giving their side coin-flip odds for a win on their first visit to the Hill Dickenson Stadium next weekend. Many would say they have a better than one-in-three chance when Chelsea visit Anfield though. Both blue teams have had comparatively better attacks on the road than at home, to explain how these numbers have come about.
We can repeat this exercise for the 62 Premier League fixtures that remain in 2025/26. The results deliver rather varied news for north London.
If this comes to pass, it will be something of an achievement for Liverpool to finish fourth after all they have endured in the last year. Not that they have much room for manoeuvre, with the predicted margin for them to do so being paper thin. Losing at Villa Park, where they are favourites to win, could see them finish sixth. This picture will shift dramatically with every passing game.
FSG won’t decide Slot’s future on the outcome of the remaining six matches. Qualifying for the Champions League through a strong end to the campaign might win back a few doubters though.
I had meant to write this in the international break, didn't have time, and it feels a little more positive after the weekend's results anyway!